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TUCSON  There was the 22-footer that went about 17, the air-balled layup, the hook shot into the side of the backboard. The brick in the lane. The other air-balled three-pointer. The short-armed free throws.

The defensive lapses. The zero offensive rebounds for the first 13 minutes. The maddening tendency of letting a No. 15 seed hang around, of letting the boys from Greeley, Colo., dream a little.

San Diego State retreated to the locker room Thursday afternoon and braced for the fiery lecture they figured they deserved, similar to the hair-dryer treatment that sparked an inspired second half at Air Force last month.

Coach Steve Fisher walked in the room and closed the door. Here it came …

Or not.

“He talked to us like regular people do, like we were having a casual conversation,” captain D.J. Gay said. “It seemed as if when he came in, he knew that we had 12 players who all had a lot going on in their heads. It put us all at ease, calmed us down, got us on the same page.”

Problem solved. Ship righted.

After looking every bit like a team that had never won a Division I NCAA Tournament game (and was obsessing about it), the second-seeded Aztecs rolled past Northern Colorado in the second half for a 68-50 win that sent a monkey hopping into the Arizona desert after being firmly attached to their back.

“This was a win for everybody that’s been associated with San Diego State,” Fisher said, “for everybody that’s put on a San Diego State uniform or walked in the halls and gone to class there. We’ve got a lot of proud Aztecs today.”

SDSU (33-2) now gets seventh-seeded Temple, a 66-64 winner Thursday against Penn State on a twisting lean-in jumper by Juan Fernandez at the buzzer, here at 3:10 p.m. Saturday.

Temple presents a different set of tactical issues with its thick guards, massive center and tough, physical, East Coast, walk-it-up, grind-it-out, dive-for-every-loose-ball style. But the bigger issue for the Aztecs might be whether Thursday’s air balls and poor decisions and missed chippies and mental errors were merely a function of the pressure to end the tournament drought, or indicative of deeper problems.

“I think a lot of us were nervous,” forward Malcolm Thomas admitted. “I know I was. A lot of us were rushing stuff. But we calmed down. Coach Fisher told us, ‘Just play basketball. Just play Aztec basketball.’

“All those nerves should be gone now.”

SDSU did trail in this game, for 16 seconds midway through the first half. It was tied at 20 when the Aztecs went on a 10-0 run, only to close the half with five missed shots and a turnover to trim the margin to a tenuous six points.

Northern Colorado’s Devon Beitzel (25 points) finally lived up to the Jimmer Fredette comparisons early in the second half, scoring 11 straight points for the Bears — nine coming on deep three-pointers after running off screens. That closed SDSU’s lead to 38-35 and elicited groans (followed by eerie silence) from the thousand or so Aztecs fans who made their way here.